Natural high

Is Colin Tudge aware that there are believers who still experience transcendence in prayer and faith without recourse to secondary metabolites ("Stoned since we first walked the earth", 20 October)? There is a unity between the transcendence and the rest of one's life, in contrast to a divorced transcendence from which one has to return to the real world until the next time.

What is sadly missing from modern life is meaningful transcendental (spiritual) experience, not drugs. Mr Tudge is right to advocate a change in attitudes to drugs and the laws that keep the barons, pushers and pimps in business. The basis for his argument is, however, misguided.

John Athanasiou

London N9